Flexibility of Gender Stereotypes: Italian Study on Comparative Gender-consistent and Gender-inconsistent Information

The topic of this study is flexibility in gender stereotyping linked to attribution of toys, socio-cognitive traits, and occupations in 160 Italian children aged 6 to 12 years. We used the Gender Toys Choice, the Gender Traits Choice, and the Gender Jobs Choice, a selected set of colored cards containing masculine and feminine stimuli to assign to a male or female or both male and female silhouette (the flexible-choice technique). In order to verify the change of flexibility in gender stereotyping, we made use of four cartoon stories with male and female characters with typical or atypical traits and performing gender-consistent or gender-inconsistent activities. Results indicated that the exposure to cartoon stories with gender-inconsistent information rather than cartoon stories with gender-consistent information increased flexibility in gender stereotyping, showing age differences in favor of children aged 11-12. Implications in relation to the developmental-constructivist approach were noted

Analysis of creative and logical-spatial skills in blind children and adolescents

This paper displays the Action-research project “Analysis and strengthening of divergent thinking in blind and visually impaired children and adolescents”, funded by the University of Catania. In light of the importance of divergent and logical-spatial skills for these subjects, in terms of life skills and good educational practices, this research project is aimed to achieve the following objectives a) to realize divergent and logical-spatial skills assessment tools and to verify the validity of these instruments; b) to explore the factors of divergent thinking in order to better understand the most deficient skills; c) to proceed with the strengthening of the more inadequate divergent abilities in the subjects. We had Stamperia Braille of Catania print the Williams’ Test of divergent thinking (TCD protocol A and B) and the Raven Matrices (standard SPM and colored CPM) in relief by thermoforming on PVC with relief height not lower than 0.9mm in order to allow the haptic understanding of stimuli by the blind. For visually impaired subjects the instruments are made using full color four-color laser printing on 80gr / mq paper. In this phase of the research, in agreement with the Italian Blind Union of Catania, we began to administer these tools to five blind subjects

Effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy in heart failure patients with valvular heart disease: comparison with patients affected by ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy. The InSync/InSync ICD Italian Registry

AimsTo analyse the effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients with valvular heart disease (a subset not specifically investigated in randomized controlled trials) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy patients.Methods and resultsPatients enrolled in a national registry were evaluated during a median follow-up of 16 months after CRT implant. Patients with valvular heart disease treated with CRT (n = 108) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease (n = 737) and dilated cardiomyopathy (n = 635) patients presented: (i) a higher prevalence of chronic atrial fibrillation, with atrioventricular node ablation performed in around half of the cases; (ii) a similar clinical and echocardiographic profile at baseline; (iii) a similar improvement of LVEF and a similar reduction in ventricular volumes at 6-12 months; (iv) a favourable clinical response at 12 months with an improvement of the clinical composite score similar to that occurring in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and more pronounced than that observed in patients with ischaemic heart disease; (v) a long-term outcome, in term of freedom from death or heart transplantation, similar to patients affected by ischaemic heart disease and basically more severe than that of patients affected by dilated cardiomyopathy.ConclusionIn 'real world' clinical practice, CRT appears to be effective also in patients with valvular heart disease. However, in this group of patients the outcome after CRT does not precisely overlap any of the two other groups of patients, for which much more data are currently available

Septic encephalopathy: clinical and EEG features of a case

Neurol Sci 25 (Suppl), Abstracts del XXXV Congresso della Società Italiana di Neurologi

Conservation of Neotropical migratory birds in tropical hardwood and oil palm plantations.

Tropical forests in the Americas are undergoing rapid conversion to commercial agriculture, and many migratory bird species that use these forests have experienced corresponding populations declines. Conservation research for migratory birds in the tropics has focused overwhelmingly on shade coffee plantations and adjacent forest, but both cover types are now in decline, creating an urgent need to evaluate conservation opportunities in other agricultural systems. Here we compare how a community of 42 Neotropical migratory bird species and a subset of five conservation-priority species differ in usage and habitat associations among a secondary forest baseline and four expanding commercial plantation systems in Guatemala: African oil palm, teak, rubber, and mixed-native hardwoods. We found that mixed-native hardwood plantations supported the highest richness and diversity of all migrants and that the three hardwood plantation types generally outperformed oil palm in richness and diversity metrics. Despite this, oil palm supported high abundance of several common and widespread species also experiencing range-wide population declines and may therefore play an important role in conserving common species. Mature secondary forest hosted low abundance and diversity of the full migratory community, but high abundance and richness of conservation priority migrants along with native hardwood and teak plantations. Likewise, the percentage of forest cover on the landscape was positively associated with priority migrant abundance and richness but negatively associated with the abundance of migrants in general, highlighting how individual species within the broad group of Neotropical migratory landbirds respond differently to anthropogenic changes in land use. Across all cover types, the retention of tall overstory trees increased the abundance, richness, and diversity of all migrants, which indicates that vertical structural diversity and remnant trees are important habitat features for birds in agricultural landscapes. Our findings show that conservation opportunities exist in hardwood and oil palm plantations, though the species likely to benefit from conservation action will vary among plantation types. For the subset of conservation priority migrants, our results suggest that conservation efforts should combine strategies that retain and restore secondary forest, promote the adoption of native hardwood and teak plantations, and promote the retention of tall, remnant trees in agricultural landscapes

When water hurts

Deglutition syncope refers to an uncommon cause of neurally mediated syncope induced by swallowing. We briefly review a case of a 66-year-old man who experienced recurrent syncope episodes during ingestion of beverages, mainly water. Our investigations documented several short asymptomatic episodes of asystole and one prolonged complete atrioventricular block of around 15 seconds associated with the syncopal events, during swallowing. Barium x-ray and manometry evaluations revealed only a nonspecific esophageal dysmotility. An underlying sick-sinus syndrome was found on electrophysiologic study. A DDD pacemaker implantation was performed leading to total disappearance of patient's symptoms